Just how magnificent is Schubert's Unfinished Symphony?

In mid-flow, just before you think the music's going to comfortably cadence again, Schubert pulls the rug out from under your ears - so to speak. There's a breathtaking pause, and then a plunge into a scalding minor-key fortissimo chord. The rest of the first section stabilises the music's trajectory into G major. read more

2) It’s not the Unfinished Symphony. Unfinished, but included The official “Unfinished” symphony (No. 8) incompletion wasn’t because of Schubert’s death. He wrote the first and second movement in 1822 (six years before his death). He just never got around to writing the last two movements (most symphonies from this era had four movements). read more

In terms of the history of the symphony, this music is unprecedented. To borrow Nikolaus Harnoncourt's phrase (who was originally talking about the draft of the finale of Bruckner's unfinished Ninth Symphony), what Schubert finished of this B minor symphony has all the strangeness, surprise, and shock of a "stone from the moon". read more